Information Overload & Integrity: The End of Information as a Valuable Commodity?

The question of data integrity is one we haven’t really addressed in class. Now that we can all post and widely distribute anything, what happens to the presumed integrity of information? Does all information become subject to suspicion? Can verification procedures or the “status” of a source ultimately preclude the need to authenticate information?

I noticed Kate’s post on two differing sets of numbers on mortgage foreclosures in Cleveland, and her query as to who to believe or how to authenticate the information. Surprisingly, her information came from the courts, and they have different answers to the same question.

Also, if we can all post anything, anytime, will information become so pervasive and ubiquitous as to be of no use to anyone? If there is just too much to make sense of, what sense does it all make?

If information is not only questionable as to its accuracy and continues to overload us from so many different sources, could this create the end of information as a useful commodity? Could all this information become meaningless? Another “dark ages” in the making

 

Computing Capital: Owning Web Content

The very idea that Bill Gates is now accumulating digital images, and the rights to digital images of artworks and museum collections, as the next big source of online control via Corbis Image library,  worries me. The article “Database Aesthetics: Of Containers, Chronofiles, Time Capsules, Xanadu, Alexandria and the World Brain … “ by Victoria Vesna, mentioned that Hardware gave way to Software, and the next vital commodity is Content. The entire idea of Internet2 also, I hate to say it, worries me. Privatization of and controlled access to information and web content is on the corporate agenda.

While there may indeed be overload, the fact that it’s all there for you to use or ignore at will is rather exciting. The thought that the democratic and open information access we have enjoyed may be coming to an end, for the almighty dollar, is just nasty.

I wonder if people will fight back? It seems that Brewster Kahle attempted to do so with his Internet Archive, in which he has been archiving web pages since 1994, and providing searchable access to anything that was once online. Kahle is the inventor and founder of Wide Area Information Servers Inc., which was recently acquired by America Online, which makes me wonder who will acquire the Internet Archive from him in future?

 

How Flickr changed the understanding and experience of my photographs

As per our New Media assignment, I put a selection of my photo-based artwork on Flikr a few weeks ago. Doing so has changed my experience and understanding of them, but not via public engagement or participation. Although 1 or 2 people have left comments, which was nice, in general, I realize that just putting work online doesn’t necessarily attract any attention without some kind of promotion.

I also realized that the nature of these images, which had previously been “personal”, and whose presentation had previously been largely controlled by me in terms of their scale, lighting, sequenceing, etc., was suddenly completely beyond my control. I realized that anyone could use, change or claim them, and that I wouldn’t know about it. I also realized that their appearance and size would be different on different monitors, and would not ever approach the kind of experience intended in the gallery setting, where some images were shown in human scale, at 8×12′, and 8×8′.

In particular, the 8×8′ image changed a lot in the gallery space, appearing as a huge, crisp image as you entered the gallery. The figures of 3 children appeared life-sized, and the image became quite three-dimensional, since you (the viewer) became the fourth person in the image as part of it’s projected experiential space.

As you moved through the gallery towards the image, you became more and more a part of it, until it began to break down into an abstract kind of pointillism at about 3 feet away.

All of this is entirely lost online.

This loss of control is somewhat disturbing. On the other hand, the opportunity for a wider audience is interesting. Using meta-tags or adding links to other sites may have drawn more viewers, and more feedback, which might have offset the feeling of loss-of-control.

The other issue, also connected to loss of control, was noted in reading Flikr’s fine print. They assert their right to anything uploaded to their site. Even if you remove it from the site, they make you acknowledge their right to back up the site and to use these back-ups if they wish.

While I guess anything you put online is vulnerable to this, it’s a good reason to consider carefully what you want to make available or not.

 

Struggling to Convert Text to Music

I am struggling to figure out how to convert a text file to audio, but so it sounds like “music”, not spoken word, for our new media project.

After going through a somewhat complicated process, that did turn text to voice as an aiff file, it ended up producing the exact same result as using the “speakable text” application built into the Mac OS.

I then downloaded Soundhack, and waded through about 20 pages of the manual to try to figure out how to make a further conversion. I took the aiff audio file, as created above, which plays in iTunes, and converted the header, as the Soundhack manual says you need to do, but it still says there is no header and cannot play the file.

Emailing Soundhack for help, it turned out that a simple “save a copy” process made it work. I was so excited to hear what it might sound like as I pressed PLAY! Well, it does sound different than in iTunes, which still sounds like a voice speaking the text, but sadly, it sounds like speeded-up chipmunk talk.

Maybe trying some other voice options in the initial step, or some FX in soundforge in the lab on Mon. would help. It sounded like such a great and straightforward idea – sigh.

The next thing to try came from the Soundhack manual, and may provide another option for generating audio directly from our digital material. I don’t want to spoil the surprise if it works, but will post an update once I give it a shot.

Almost starting to feel like a techie!
Now THAT is strange.

This experience confirms Steve’s warning that there are many things that can go wrong at any stage of the game. It seems that the shortest distance between a newmedia idea and its successful execution is never a straight line.

 

2nd Life Svarga Tour

I just returned from one of my most enjoyable 2nd life experiences. I got there from the link on Alx’s blog:

• Svaga ecosystem: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Svarga/7/124/2

When I arrived there were 3 other people standing around, which was itself a rarity. We tried to chat, but they were Italian so it didn’t go far. However, what I liked best was that there was a tour of the island. By clicking on the big chair outside the landing station, you can choose a language and get an aerial guided tour. Quite a pleasant experience, like flying but controlled by the program. It was a strange merging between feeling embodied and disembodied at the same time. In mouselook it was much more realistic.

Unfortunately, the tour isn’t interactive, which would have kicked it up to another level and a still more embodied experience as true participant instead of passive observer. I asked a question about the “artificial life experiments” they were doing, which the tour guide mentions, I got no reply. However, I did get some sense of what the place had to offer, what the major landmarks are, and the general topography. I got the landmark card and will return to explore another time.

In my mind this is a huge improvement over wandering aimlessly trying to figure out what’s going on, and what options are available. More “newbie” friendly places should provide something like this.

ps – if you take the tour, be sure to switch to mouselook – it’s a much better experience.

pps – If you go back to Art Metropole, be sure to touch the chained down floating simulation of Jean Beaudrillard right outside. He offers many interesting quotations of his ideas with each touch (right click, or option-click Mac)

 

The Aloneness of Social Media

While it can be delightful to dabble in the communal and social aspects of new media, it’s an odd contradiction that one is almost always alone while doing so. Some aspects, like facebook, which I joined last night, are actually quite fun. I have been sent 2 videos, a virtual marguerita, an invitation to a play, a bar-b-q and a party, all in my first day. Yet here I am, alone in the dark, typing in front of a glowing screen.

 

I Heart New York!

Yes, corny, but oh-so-true!
I feel so inspired and energized. (photos coming soon!)

The MOMA, as ever, was one of the stars, displaying fabulous classics from the collection, including about 15 of their 300 Rauschenbergs, Merit Oppenheim’s “Object”, which is a fur-covered and fur-lined tea cup and spoon, and too many more to mention. (The surrealists are always a thrill for me.) They also have a new expanded design area, which now includes 3 Urban Vinyl “art toys” prized by collectors of lowbrow, or nobrow art. Lowbrow moves up in the world!

Also at MOMA, Olafur Eliasson’s “Take Your Time” show used lights, colours, mirrors, strobes and smoke to create different immersive environments. Take the online tour here. Dara Birnbaum’s “Wonder Woman” that Ed Slopek assisted on was also there, filling a large wall at the foot of the escalator (hey – guess what? It’s not the first time Ed’s had work at the MOMA!), and there were several other very interesting video pieces, especially those by Sigalit Landau, some of which included sculptural installations. (Check out the still image of her bare torso doing an endless hula hoop with a large circle of barbed wire, if you dare.) Lynda Bengli’s layered video images of herself mouthing her own mouth and tongue was captivating, as part of the “Multiplex: Directions in Art, 1970 to Now“ exhibition. Bernd and Hilla Becher had a large exhibition “Landscape/Typology”, which reminded me of Tory’s archive project for Blake’s class. Actually, I like Tory’s project more than their originals – thanks Tory!

Dinner at the magical wonderland that is Panna 2 restaurant after the MOMA was great, and seems to be becoming a tradition, thanks to Ed.

Another highlight was playing David Byrne’s sound installation in the fabulous, if a bit run-down, Battery Maritime Building, on the waterfront. An old pump organ in the middle of a vast, skylit room, had numerous tubes and wires running from it to various parts of the building. In playing the organ, you were effectively playing the building. I will post a video of it shortly and provide a link in this post. As the light streamed in diagonal lines through the huge, grand-decaying-dame of industrial space, the quircky, random sounds were sublime.

Of course the Staten Island Ferry, free and serving cold beer, was a must to cool off afterwards, since it was about 40 degrees that day. The Statue of Liberty says “hi”.

Fabulous beyond words was an experimental dance and theatrical performance in the Ontological Theatre in an old church, owned by avante-garde playwright Richard Forman. The performance, called “Vicious Dogs on Premises” by the group Witness Relocation, who were the recipients of the 2007 NY Innovative Theater Awards for best choreographer, best sound design, and best production, was hysterical, intense, incredibly energetic and constantly innovative and surprising.

Sadly, the Whitney Biennial (see a video clip of the show) left me scratching my head, disappointed and confused as to what most of it was about. There were some redeeming pieces, primarily a fabulous video dyptich “The Casting”, by Omer Fast. Fast used video as posed, still shots to illustrate 2 interwoven narratives as he describes an unfortunate incident as a soldier and several disturbing ones within a new relationship.

Jeff Koons giant metallic ballon sculptures on the roof of the Met were a delightful change from seeing his work contained in galleries, and were a suiting companion to the Super Heroes Fashion and fantasy show on at the same time. Of course the Met could take a week in itself, and we only had a few hours, but it was a refreshingly playful take on some aspects of art and pop culture.

Cai Guo-Qiang at the Guggenheim was just closing, but we did get to see some of this most heart-stopping show. Beautiful, horrifying and provocative, I had to buy the catalogue to see what else I had missed. They were dismantling the exhibition, carrying hundreds of stuffed wolves out of the museum one-by-one when we were there, which was a show unto itself!

 

“Video Sniffing”: British Artists using CCTV (security cameras) to make ART

Following a link on Heather’s blog to the University of Openess, I came across an interesting article on how artists in Britain, the most surveilled country in the world, are performing for and capturing images from security cameras, then using the footage to make their own movies.

“Video sniffers” intercept wireless camera signals using basic electronic receivers, similar to a device used to pick up television signals. This, connected to a camcorder, allows the sniffer to view images from nearby closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras.

A wonderful way to get something back, and some kind of control, over security cameras!

 

Tagging as a Virtual Sport

I can’t help but notice when in “my del.ici.ous” how many other people have tagged the same sites I have, or NOT. This raises the opportunity to feel that you are “in-the-know” about something popular or interesting, as well as creating an opportunity to be the “first” to find and tag something “hot”. Once you’ve created a “first”, watching to see how many other people pick it up, and how fast, is also kind of entertaining.

One more interesting little layer related to community and new media.

 

Resistance to Mapping Images on Flickr

We are supposed to map our Flickr images, yet I am unable to bring myself to do so. The images I posted are samples of my personal artwork. They are derived from, and metaphorically represent, the interior, non-physical world.

Mapping them in the physical world makes them seem less like what they are intended to represent. It feels as though the “magic” of “anyplace” or “everyplace” in them will be displaced by coordinates of latitude and longitude. I don’t want to know what else was photographed near my own photographs, for they are images trapped in the reality of the physical world, but dealing with ideas of the non-physical and non-linear.

I had no idea I would feel this way when I posted them, so I have learned something new about an aspect that is important to me in my personal work.

For this reason I have decided NOT to map them.

I may have to post something less ethereal, whose ties to a specific physical place have no greater meanings that might be lost, or de-materialized, by naming their location.